Over the last 50 years ITD has created a niche for itself in teaching and research in international economics and economic development. The first head of ITD was the renowned economist, the late Professor A K Dasgupta. He was succeeded by our distinguished colleague Professor Ashok Guha, who was the guiding force of ITD since 1963, until his retirement. He continues to be involved in the teaching programmes of the Centre. Former faculty include B.S. Minhas, Subimal Mukherji, Partha Dasgupta and others. Stalwarts like John Hicks, James Meade and Robert Baldwin have visited the division to deliver lecture-series.

Initially ITD was primarily geared towards research, running very successful MPhil and PhD programmes for several decades. In 1995, we introduced a unique MA programme in Economics (with specialisation in the world economy), keeping in mind the changing economic environment of India and its integration with the world economy. The curriculum has been designed with a clear emphasis on emerging global. This MA programme has proved to be highly successful, and is one of the most popular MA Economics programmes in the country.

CITD is perhaps the only economics department in the country focusing exclusively on international economics and economic development as its main areas of teaching and research, specialising in areas like trade & investment, technology, environment & natural resources, health& nutrition, finance, law & economics, poverty, inequality, and education.

The centre is served by distinguished faculty trained at top ranking universities of the world. Faculty strive to maintain highest academic standards in teaching, and produce high quality, cutting-edge research and regularly publish articles in the leading academic journals of their field. Faculty members have been conferred with various honours, awards and distinctions for their academic and professional contributions.

Our graduates are well established in the academic world in India and abroad, holding positions of great responsibility in the government, international organizations and the corporate world.

The centre runs a discussion paper series for early dissemination of research results. To expose students to recent developments in the discipline of economics and provide a stimulating research environment, the Centre also conducts weekly seminars and organizes Conferences on select themes.

The Centre received an endowment from the Ford Foundation in 1993. This enabled the centre to provide scholarships to students, to maintain its own well stocked library and to appoint a Ford Fellow from time to time, who participates in its teaching and research activities.